


The Astrophile

by sunmoonstarsrain



Series: The Astrophile [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunmoonstarsrain/pseuds/sunmoonstarsrain
Summary: She may mean the world to Iwaizumi Hajime but at the end of the day, Oikawa Tooru is his star.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Original Female Character(s), Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader
Series: The Astrophile [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200386
Comments: 18
Kudos: 42
Collections: lovelove, my favorite hq fanfics pls





	The Astrophile

**Author's Note:**

> \- You are my sun, my moon and all the stars-

She used to think the universe intended for her to literally _crash_ into one Iwaizumi Hajime. 

One of her first assignments as a writer for one of the country’s top sports magazines was to cover the Japanese volleyball team’s season, and despite constant reminders from her editors _not_ to screw this up because the men’s volleyball team is crazy popular these days, she manages to trip over her own feet and knock not just herself, but the newly minted team trainer to the ground. 

When she lifts her head from the ground, the first thing that hits her mind is - _goodness, he’s hot_ \- he’s a veritable god among men, all sinewy muscles and sunkissed skin, and she can’t bring herself to speak as he carefully checks her once over for any signs of injury. ‘Are you alright?’ he asks her, and she nods dumbly as he pulls her to her feet and waves her off with a warm smile. The heat from his hands lingers on her skin long after she goes to bed that night. 

They meet again at the next match. He remembers her name, she gives him a friendly wave. Then at the next match, she cheekily asks for his comments and he huffs a laugh as he directs her to the team’s PR manager. By the end of the season, she works up the courage to ask him out for coffee, and he says _yes_. 

Iwaizumi Hajime is everything she dreamt of in a partner - kind, caring, steady, his feet firmly planted on the ground. He always wraps his arm around her to pull her close when they walk along the edge of the road, and indulges her pleas for an extra cuddle – ‘ _the last one, I promise!_ ’ - every morning when he leaves for work. They exchange long text messages late into the night when either of them are on the road, and nag each other for working too hard. When they lay in bed at night, he whispers promises filled with love against her skin, tells her he can trace the constellations in her eyes. 

It makes it so easy for her to close her eyes and believe that their love is written in the stars, so a year later when he asks her to marry him, she doesn’t hesitate to jump into his arms and say _yes_. The weight of the silver band he slips on her finger grounds her with his love, and her heart is full. 

She can’t stop feeling like a thief who’s snatched the sun from the sky. 

\--------------------------------------

Oikawa Tooru is to be his best man of course. 

She knows who he is, she’s covered the sport long enough to have heard about him - the prodigious setter from Miyagi who never made it once to Nationals despite his obvious talent (an exquisitely crafted _katana_ is, after all, no match for the brute force of a cannon), who spit in the face of fate and chased his dreams to sunnier lands. 

Iwaizumi has always been awfully fond of regaling her with stories of Oikawa, so much so that she thinks she can piece together their relationship - childhood friends turned longtime teammates, the long suffering ace and the monstrously brilliant setter. She watches his face soften uncharacteristically when he reads news about his old friend winning a match, and hardens when Oikawa whines loudly during their video calls about his bruises and sore knee. She can’t help but think Iwaizumi must have been like Jupiter, a god in his own right, drawn into orbit around Oikawa, a star burning over-bright. 

She knows they remain best friends despite their separation by whole continents, keeping in contact via video calls and text messages, playing hopscotch with the time difference. They certainly look like it when they greet each other at the airport, Oikawa trilling a playful ‘ _Iwa-channn_ ’ and Iwaizumi grunting at him to _‘shut up, they’re in public, dumbass!_ ’, exchanging back slaps so loud it makes her wince. 

‘You must be the poor fiancee’, Oikawa gives her an exaggerated leer as he stands before her, hands on hips. ‘What did Iwa-chan drug you with to get you to marry him? Do you know he snores like a monster in his sleep? You know you can back out before the wedding right? Blink once if you’re ok, and twice if you’re not - and I’ll help you escape from him.’

Before she can respond to that frankly impertinent speech, Iwaizumi roars ‘ _Shut-up, Shittykawa_ ’, tackling him into a headlock and wrestling him off into their car. She stifles a laugh as they spend the rest of the ride to Oikawa’s hotel room bickering back and forth. 

‘How did you manage to pack so much luggage for a two week stay, you vain piece of crap!’

‘I care about my looks and grooming - unlike some of us who skulk around in clothes they’ve worn since high school!’ 

‘Vainpot.’

‘Beast.’ 

‘Piece of shit’ 

‘Meanie’

Iwaizumi alternates between grunting and growling at Oikawa’s nonsense but his eyes are shining ( _so bright that she can see stars_ ) and Oikawa’s retorts are punctuated with smiles that are impossibly wide. She thinks to herself it’ll be good for Iwaizumi to have Oikawa around.

\--------------------------------------

Oikawa starts to call her ‘ _Chibi-chan_ ’ especially when Hajime is around to be annoyed by it – she admits she’s short, but not _that_ short, it’s just that he spends most of his time surrounded by literal _giants_ \- and develops an irritating habit of ambushing her with quizzes about Hajime's likes and dislikes. 

'Favourite food?' 

'Agedashi tofu.' 

'Favourite movie?' 

'Godzilla.’ 

After a few rounds of these pop quizzes, she looks at him like he's sprouted a second head. ‘Seriously, Oikawa-san, we're getting married in less than two weeks. Do you seriously think I wouldn't know the most obvious things about my own fiancé?' 

'Don't frown, Chibi-chan, you'll grow wrinkles and look old', he sing songs at her. 'I'm just making sure you're worthy of Iwa-chan's love!' 

'Stop bullying my fiancée, Shittykawa, or I'll beat you up so bad you can't move'. Iwaizumi rubs lazy circles against her back, and she leans against him comfortably. 

'Aww Iwa-chan, once a bone head, always a bone head’, Oikawa says, scrunching his face into a mock-sniff. ‘Say, Chibi-chan, do you know Iwa-chan would beat me up ‘til I let go all the cicadas we caught, but if they died, he would cry?' 

‘Are you calling me a crybaby, Shittykawa’, Iwaizumi growls dangerously, simmering down only when she coos at him, ‘that’s so cute, you must have been such a sweet child’. 

Then, sensing that her presence is probably stopping the boys from catching up fully, she shoos them out of the apartment on the premise that they should get some fresh air and cool off but really so they can get some much needed time together. ‘ _And stop fighting’_ , she calls after them, making good use of the quiet to busy herself with wedding preparations. 

When Iwaizumi finally returns home late that night, he finds her asleep on the couch, and with a soft smile he curls up around her. ‘Hajime?’ she breathes, nuzzling her nose into his neck, and he has to bite back the urge to cover her face with kisses, tightening his hold on her instead. 

‘I’m back’, he whispers, his breath warm against her neck. ‘Sorry I was out so long’. 

‘It’s fine’, she mumbles sleepily. ‘Did you guys have fun?’

‘Yeah - we went for dinner and then Oikawa dragged me to at least five different bakeries to find the perfect milk bread before he was willing to go for drinks’, he complains. ‘And he made me promise to go for drinks with Issei and Hanamaki tomorrow afternoon before we meet with the wedding coordinator’.

‘Mm’, she hums absently. ‘Oikawa seemed a little on edge earlier. I’m glad he calmed down and had fun with you’. 

Iwaizumi frowns into her hair, thinking back to Oikawa’s inexplicable needling of her earlier. ‘Sweetheart, if Oikawa is irritating you, I'll make him stop’. 

‘It’s fine’, she says, with a little more force than she intended, waving away the concerned look he gives her. ‘He’s your best friend, Hajime. I think he's just feeling a little insecure. You should spend more time with him while you still can’. 

He grins and kisses her warmly. ‘You’re too good to me. What did I do to deserve you?’ 

‘Because the universe willed that I love you’, she answers, as if it were the most obvious thing on earth. 

\--------------------------------------

But Oikawa manages to find a way to wreck her well made plans. 

Iwaizumi finds her in the kitchen, back turned towards him, and the slam of the dishes on the counter makes him wince. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart’, he tells her, wincing when she shrugs off his hand. 

'You skipped our appointment with our wedding coordinator', she hisses, whirling around to face him. ‘But that’s not the worst of it - do you know how scared I was when you didn’t pick up my calls? I thought you got _hurt_ or heaven forbid - got run over by a car and _died,_ Hajime!’

‘I’m sorry’, he repeats, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. 'I got engrossed in catching up with Hanamaki and Issei, and Oikawa stole my phone so I lost track of time. I kicked his ass for it, you could've heard him whining about it from outer space’. He slyly slides an arm around her waist, resisting her attempts to pull away as he buries his nose in her hair. ‘I'll make it up to you, I promise'. 

'Make sure you do', she huffs, leaning into his warmth. ‘And what was Oikawa’s reason for stealing your phone?’ 

‘You know Shittykawa, he probably thought he was being cute. I’ll make him apologise,’ Hajime replies, pressing his nose into the crook of her neck. 

She relaxes a fraction, breathing in his familiar scent - fresh linen and pine and _home_ , but that doesn't ease the knot of _something_ \- _she can't quite put her finger on what it is just yet -_ weighing down in her chest. 

\--------------------------------------

True to his word, Iwaizumi drags Oikawa by his ear to lunch with them the next day, not letting go until he apologises to her with an appropriately chastened expression on his face. ‘I’m sorry, Chibi-chan, I shan’t do it again’, he tells her contritely, but when Iwaizumi’s back is turned, he shoots her a puckish grin brimming with mischief that makes her toes curl. 

She ignores him, and lets herself be drawn into the flow of their conversation - Oikawa complaining incessantly about Ushijima Wakatoshi and Kageyama Tobio whom she’s met many times in the past few months and he shoots her dirty looks when she archly tells him that _she_ thinks they’re lovely men, Iwaizumi getting on Oikawa’s case again for not eating enough, for not sleeping enough, barely able to restrain himself from violence when Oikawa responds with a trilled ‘ _Iwa-chan, you sound like my mother_ ’. 

The conversation meanders off to their Seijoh teammates she’s not terribly familiar with, so she’s caught off guard when Oikawa abruptly turns to her with shit-eating grin and asks innocently ‘Say, Chibi-chan, what about Iwa-chan caught your eye?’

‘Have you looked at him?’ she says, playfully nudging a blushing Iwaizumi with her elbow. ‘He’s built like a god.’

Oikawa’s smile turns sickly sweet, showing far too much teeth. ‘In that case, I’m surprised you didn’t go for one of the volleyball players instead. Or was Iwa-chan your last attempt? You’re twenty-five this year, after all.’

A glance in Iwaizumi’s direction shows her exactly what she expects - first, his mouth drops open in a wide-eyed, open mouthed gape, then fury burns white hot across his face, and she has to grab his hand before he causes a scene by throwing himself bodily across the table to strangle the smirk off Oikawa’s face. ‘ _I can fight my own battles_ ’, she mouths at him, willing him to stay in his seat, her hand still pressed firmly against his. 

‘Well, you did ask me what first attracted me to Hajime, and I didn’t lie - I was really drawn by his looks’. 

She inhales and lets herself be drawn back to the warmth of the memory of tumbling head first into Iwaizumi’s arms, and exhales to look squarely at Oikawa. ‘But then I fell for his kindness, his steadfastness, his patience - and when he told me he loved me, I felt as if the universe had handed me the sun, the moon and the stars’. 

Her answer must have touched Oikawa’s shrivelled little heart, she thinks to herself, because _something_ in his eyes shutters and a look of respect streaks across his face. ‘Well said, Chibi-chan, well said’, he says begrudgingly. ‘Iwa-chan is lucky to have you’. 

The rest of lunch passes without incident, and when she and Iwaizumi are finally back home, he corners her as she’s about to go to bed and asks quietly - ‘Sweetheart, did you really mean all of that?’ 

‘Of course I do. I love you, Hajime. Do you need me to count the ways?’ 

‘Maybe’, he responds playfully, circling his arms around her as she pulls him to bed. She lies in his embrace, ear pressed to his chest and falls asleep to the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the ebb and flow of his breath, the rise and fall of his chest.

\--------------------------------------

When Iwaizumi calls out that he’ll be gone to the bar down the street for an hour or two to vet Oikawa’s best man speech, she certainly did not expect him to burst back into their flat with Oikawa held bridal style in his arms. It would have been a comical sight - Oikawa’s bulky frame dwarfing even Iwaizumi, legs looking ludicrously long dangling over Iwaizumi’s arms - but for the frantic expression of Iwaizumi’s face and the desperate way Oikawa clings to Iwaizumi’s neck. 

‘Idiot bumped his knee while doing shots’, Iwaizumi explains to her distractedly, as he settles Oikawa onto their couch. ‘I don’t think it’s serious, but I’ll take him to the doctor in the morning to check him out just in case. Brought him to our place since it’s closer than his hotel room, and I can keep an eye on him overnight’. 

She hands him an ice pack. ‘Why don’t you two take our bed, and I’ll take the couch? He’ll be more comfortable that way, and you can watch over him at night.’

‘Are you sure?’ Iwaizumi frowns, and she nods, pushing him towards his friend while she turns to fetch a set of spare pyjamas for their unexpected guest. Iwaizumi lifts Oikawa to their bed and together, they strip him of his clothes and, mindful of his knee, gingerly slide him into clean clothes. 

‘Iwa-chan’, she hears the lanky setter whine as she makes to leave the room to bring an extra ice pack. Turning her head, she catches a glimpse of Hajime bending over Oikawa’s form. She’s not sure if it’s a trick of the light, but she _swears_ she saw Iwaizumi brush his fingers against Oikawa’s forehead with a quiet tenderness he’s only ever shown to her, tucking his hair behind his ears. For some reason, it makes her heart clench. 

She’s gathering the discarded clothes up from the floor whilst Iwaizumi’s in the shower, when Oikawa shoots his hand out to grab her wrist. ‘I’m sorry’, he tells her, a plaintive note in his voice. ‘I tore it up – I should never have tried to tell him.’

‘What?’ She gives him a bewildered stare. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Iwa-chan’, he slurs, and she can smell the alcohol on his breath as she moves closer to him to catch his words. ‘He got mad with me, madder than I’ve ever seen him before.’

‘You mean Hajime? Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay mad with you, whatever it is you’ve done.’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry’, he manages to say, and starts to cry. She flounders, unsure whether to comfort him herself or call for Hajime to deal with him (because she’s not stupid, it’s painfully obvious he resents her), but the look in his eyes is so heartbreakingly vulnerable that she can't bring herself to leave him alone even for a minute, so she sits next to him on the bed, rubbing a soothing hand against his back while he soaks her sleeve with hot tears. ‘You’re drunk and injured, Oikawa-san. You should rest’, she murmurs, easing him back against his pillow when his sobs cease and he seems to calm down. 

As she bends down again to pick up his clothes, he gives a cry of alarm and tries to grab her wrist again, almost flipping himself off the bed. Hearing the commotion, Iwaizumi rushes into the room, hair still wet from his shower, barking loudly ‘ _you idiot_ ’, forcing Oikawa to lie back down onto the bed. She backs out of the room, leaving Hajime to comfort his sobbing friend. 

She doesn’t think too much about Oikawa’s strange words, mentally writing it off as another one of his odd little quirks. But as she’s folding up his pants, a stack of torn papers falls out of its pocket, and she thinks she recognises the words ‘ _Iwa-chan_ ’ scribbled all over it. Though she knows it’s wrong to invade his privacy – especially when he’s in no position to defend it, she can’t help but be curious, reasoning to herself that it must be his best man’s speech, she should at least vet through it once before the wedding. 

It isn’t hard to piece the scraps of paper together, the tears uneven, as if made in a fit of panic or rage. It is, as she thought, Oikawa’s best man speech, and it starts out as expected, with well wishes to Iwaizumi and her. But as she continues reading, running her finger over each word, etched so harshly into each page that the ink bleeds, it becomes evident that that isn’t the only thing Oikawa meant to say. 

‘ _I know it’s too late, but I love you, Iwa-chan_ ’, she reads with growing horror on the very last page, a suspicious water stain next to these words. Mind whirling, unable to process what she’s just read, she sits at the kitchen table reading and re-reading his words until her vision starts to blur. 

‘ _There are times I wonder if I chose wrong, if I should have held fast to you, the other half of my soul rather than going off to fight in hopeless wars, because I should have known you won’t always be waiting for me to come home. But I will always love you - like the moon loves the sun, even if I can only watch you from afar, so full of light_ ’. 

She should be _furious_ – she should head straight to Oikawa and scream and shout and stamp her foot at him, because how _dare_ he say these things _now_ when he’s had _forever_ to say them to Iwaizumi before she even came into the picture – how _dare_ he wait until she and Iwaizumi are less than ten days away from being wed. But she doesn’t, because deep inside her, she understands. 

_How can she begrudge his love when they love the same man?_

‘Sweetheart’, she faintly hears Iwaizumi say, squinting as he emerges from the dark bedroom. ‘Is everything alright?’ he asks, his voice heavy with concern when he catches sight of her tear stained face. 

She wants to tell him that everything’s _just fine_ – but his gaze shifts to the torn papers in her trembling hands and she knows immediately everything is _not fine at all_ when he looks back at her with guilt and anguish branded on his face. 

‘Did you know?’ she asks, hating the way her voice starts to break. 

‘He told me just now’, he tells her heavily, dropping into the seat across her, his hands cradling his head. 

‘Do you love him?’ she demands, ignoring the sob that’s threatening to tear itself out of her chest. 

He looks up at her. There are tears in his eyes. 

‘Yes’, he admits. ‘I don’t want to, but I do’. 

His words knock the oxygen from her lungs, leaving her with a crater in her chest. He loves _Oikawa Tooru,_ this beautiful, brilliant, _broken_ boy, incandescent with the light of a thousand stars. 

_Where does that leave her?_

(Stranded in the dust, abandoned in the dark) 

She suddenly feels as if she’s trapped in her own skin, a vise that’s far, far too tight, burning with the need to turn herself inside out. ‘I need to go’, she manages to spit out, stumbling over her feet. He stands in alarm, reaching towards her but she slaps his hand away. ‘Don’t touch me’, she hisses, grabbing her wallet and phone through a haze of tears. 

‘Where are you going to go?’ he demands, barring the door with his large frame. ‘It’s late, it’s not safe.’

‘Anywhere that’s not here’, she snarls, trying to shoulder her way through. ‘Let me go, Hajime – I can’t stay here, please, let me go!’ She slams her fists against his chest, collapsing to the floor at his feet when she realises it’s impossible to break through the immovable force that is Iwaizumi Hajime. 

‘Let me go somewhere that isn’t here’, she begs him, hiccupping through her tears. ‘You’re hurting me more by making me stay here with him’. 

He sinks to his knees to cup her face in his hands. ‘I’m sorry’, he sobs. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I lose you too’. 

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him he already has ( _because she can’t stay, it hurts_ , _it hurts, it hurts)_ , and when her stillness convinces him it’s safe to turn his back to her for a second, she slips through the door and disappears into the night. She hears him shout her name, hears the anguish in his voice, but she doesn’t stop running until she’s safely ensconced in a nearby hotel room. 

Her phone keeps buzzing through the night. ‘ _Iwaizumi Hajime_ ’, it reads, ‘ _Iwaizumi Hajime_ ’, flashes on her screen, again and again. She tries her best to ignore it, turning her phone on to silent mode, leaving it face down on the dresser but she can’t - her ears still echoing with the heart wrenching panic in his voice. So she rolls over to her phone and sends him a quick text – ‘ _I’m fine, go to bed, you have a doctor’s appointment with Oikawa to worry about tomorrow morning’_ – quickly switching it off before he can flood her inbox with desperate calls and texts. 

She tries her best to fall asleep, but she ends up lying awake, counting the cracks in the ceiling. The air in the room is far, far too still, and she feels like she’s suffocating, buried alive from the sand and dirt and earth pouring into the cavity in her chest. Against her better judgment, she uncorks the cheap spirits in the hotel minibar and pours herself shots, one after another, until she drops off to sleep with a single thought swirling around her head. 

The universe isn’t fair - because first it gave her Hajime, then it took him away. 

\--------------------------------------

It is noon when she wakes, sunlight streaming mercilessly into the room. She sits up with a groan, rubbing a hand across her face. For a second, she wonders where she is, the monochrome sheets so different from the cheerful patterns she uses in their room, before reality _slams_ into her like a comet to her chest. 

_Right_ . _That happened_. 

She can scream and cry and try to scratch the face of fate but it won’t change matters. Hiding away from the world isn’t going to make the cruel joke that is her love life go away, so she grits her teeth and steels herself, washing her face and paying the bill before heading home (though if she’s honest with herself, she’s not sure if it’ll be _home_ for much longer). 

She prays to god or whatever deity there is out there (not the universe, it has a funny way of throwing _shit_ her way) that Iwaizumi wouldn’t be home, but whatever it is, it’s definitely not listening because Iwaizumi opens the front door while she’s still struggling with her keys. It takes just one look at him for the pain in her chest to make its presence felt again. 

‘How’s Oikawa’s knee?’ she casually inquires, edging around him to slip into the flat. Oikawa doesn’t seem to be around, so she lets herself relax just an inch. 

‘It’s fine’, he responds, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Just needs some rest’. 

‘That’s good’, she says absently, heading straight for the kitchen, ignoring him as he follows her steps. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asks, pulling leftover rice and dashi stock out of the fridge. He nods dumbly as she heats them both up to assemble two bowls of _Ochazuke_. Her heart may be broken, but her stomach certainly isn’t, and she’s not about to let herself wither away. He looks at her dumbly as she slides his bowl at him, and neither of them says a word until she leans back in her chair, satisfied with her meal. 

‘Are we going to talk?’ he asks her confusedly. 

‘About last night? What is there left to talk about?’ she replies, keeping her composure firm. ‘The wedding’s off obviously, so we need to inform all our vendors and guests as soon as possible. I think I should be the one to move out of the flat – ‘

He cuts her off frantically – ‘What? Why would we call off our wedding? I still love you, and you still love me, don’t you?’

She gapes at him incredulously. ‘Hajime, you told me last night that you love Oikawa. How is our marriage going to work if you love someone else?’ 

‘But I love you’, he says, his voice cracking. ‘Isn’t that enough?’ 

_No it isn’t_ , and she’s shaking her head because _it isn’t enough, it’s never going to be enough, because he may love her but he’s in love with him – has been since they were little boys with stars in their eyes_ . And his shoulders shake and it’s his turn to cry because _he loves her, he really does, he knows greed is a sin but he wants both him and her, and he wishes that it could be enough_. 

‘I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you’, she tells him, eyes dry, but there’s a tremble in her voice that she can’t hide - because she’s so _stupid_ , she should have figured this out long before she dug out her heart and handed it to him - but then again maybe she didn’t because she was blinded by staring too long at the sun. 

‘You will grow to resent me if I keep him from you and besides, how could _I_ possibly compare?’ 

_Because Oikawa Tooru, blessed with innate brilliance and cursed with a penchant for self-immolation, burns brighter than a thousand stars._

‘I’m sorry’, he tells her, rounding the table to drop to his knees before her, the look in his eyes so heartbreakingly sad that she has to choke back a sob. ‘You meant the world to me’, he whispers brokenly as he buries his face in her lap. 

‘I know’, she answers him – and _gods_ , her heart is screaming and _it hurts_ \- _but she_ _loves him so much she knows it’s only right to let him go_. ‘But the world will move on, and you need to chase the stars while you still have them in your sight’.

At this, he lets out a quiet cry, and this time she gives in and joins him, her tears soaking his hair. He wraps his arms around her as she presses kisses into his skin and they stay that way for a while, their limbs entwined, because it finally dawns on both of them that this is _it_ \- it truly is the end of _them_.

The sun may set and the moon may rise, but the stars - they burn bright in the sky. 

\--------------------------------------

Her love for him should die ( _from earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust)_ – but it doesn’t. 

She packs her life into cardboard boxes and shifts into her sister’s flat. Iwaizumi doesn’t allow her to pay for the cancellation of their wedding, takes all responsibility for informing their guests that the wedding’s off - he says it’s his fault after all, and she doesn’t resist, knowing it’s his way of trying to make amends. 

His face crumples and he tries to refuse her when she returns his ring, but she insists - because _it doesn’t feel right_ , she can’t seem to smile when the silver band catches the sun's light. He doesn’t tell her he keeps it in a box beside his bed, and opens it from time to time.

Oikawa manages to weasel her sister’s address out of Iwaizumi and appears on her doorstep the day before he’s due to return to Argentina with a bushel of white lilies in his arms. 

‘Wait!’ he cries, catching the door with his foot as she tries to slam it into his face, cursing the reflexes of a professional athlete. ‘I won’t take too much of your time’, he promises, and she folds her arms, glaring at him expectantly. 

‘I’m sorry. I’ve treated you and Hajime terribly, haven’t I’, he asks her shamefacedly. 

‘You have’, she tells him coldly, because she desperately wants to blame him for everything bad that's come her way but when he hangs his head, she can’t help but soften her tone. ‘But I understand, Oikawa. How could I blame you when I love the same man?’ 

‘I don’t deserve your kindness’, he responds quietly, after a pause. 

‘But you have it’, she tells him. ‘So live and be happy, for his and my sake’. 

When he leaves, she closes the door and sinks to the floor, burying her nose in his offering of lilies. Its scent is cloying sweet, but she can only taste the bitterness of ash in her mouth. 

\--------------------------------------

A year later, and she’s back covering the Japanese men’s volleyball season when she runs into one Iwaizumi Hajime again. 

He is the first to speak, asking her a genial ‘how are you’, to which she replies ‘fine’, though she really means - ‘I may be wounded, but I am still standing on my feet’. But Iwaizumi understands - _he always does_ , and they stay silent for a while. 

She picks up the courage to ask after Oikawa, and she _knows_ he’s trying his best not to light up as he tells her that though he’s back in Argentina, they’re pursuing a long distance relationship. In turn, she tells him about her new boyfriend, ruefully mentioning that though she tried to stay clear of volleyball boys, Akaashi Keiji not only used to play volleyball in high school, but is the best friend (and former setter) of Bokuto Koutaro, national team player and self-proclaimed ace. He laughs at that - but she does not mention it is a relationship born out of the heartbreak reflected in both of their eyes.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks her before they part. It’s ironic because these are the first words he’s ever said to her, but she swallows the memory and this time she responds truthfully.

‘It’s a work in progress and I’m getting there, one day at a time’. 

They exchange bittersweet smiles.

_It’s enough for now_. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos are very, very much appreciated <3
> 
> \- FYI Oikawa's insult that 'chibi-chan' / reader / ofc is already twenty five is a reference to the awful saying in Japan that unmarried women in their late 20's are called "Christmas Cakes" because "after the 25th they're not good"


End file.
